This project focuses on working with the community to create an optional short lived campaign feature to celebrate 25 years of Wikipedia. The feature will have surprises and “easter eggs” for readers of Wikipedia to discover. These fun “easter eggs” will be on theWikipedia portal page, and any interested Wikipedias. The campaign feature will be available in mid-January 2026 and run for a month.No changes will be implemented on a language-specific Wikipedia without community collaboration and approval. We will notify folks of any changes to the portal or apps in advance.
In addition to this campaign feature, we are also exploring easter eggs for the Wikipedia App but these would launch later in 2026.
This project is a collaboration between the Product and Technology and Communications departments. It is led byCarolyn Li-Madeo andCorli de Kock.
While our goal is to be creative with this work, we set some guardrails for our explorations to ensure safety of participants and adherence to best practices:
18–34 year-olds (younger millennials and older Gen Z) with a focus on global Readers
We have finalised the timing for the special campaign feature:
If you want to be guaranteed to have the special feature live on your Wikipedia by 16 February 2025, we need to know you are interested by 15 December 2025.
In the last update, we shared mockups of the wireframes showing the placement of UI elements, using artwork placeholders. Small changes have been made to the wireframes, which you canview at this Figma link. These changes include:
The special campaign feature will be built as a community configured gadget. We have already built these top-level toggles:
Now we are adding additional admin-level options that communities will be able to customize through Community Configuration. This includes toggles like:
We need your help defining this second group of toggles. Help us by answering these question on thetalk page:
On what article types (defined via Wikidata items) should this celebratory confetti mascot easter egg appear? Note that confetti will only appear in the small area around the mascot when a reader clicks on the mascot. The deadline for suggestions is end of day5 January 2026. Add your suggestionshere.
This mascot will appear on pages related to dreaming or sleep, and when a reader is idle for a long time. In the dream bubble we will show footage without sound from Wikimedia Commons as the mascot’s dreams. What footage do you think we should play there? Share a link! Please make sure the footage you suggest is high quality and CC0 or in the public domain. The deadline for adding footage is end of day30 November 2025. Add your suggestionshere.
Most of the items that the birthday mascot uses will come from the space inside the globe, which we are treating like "hammerspace". This allows for lots of fun with different items! What emojis do you think we should include in hammerspace? We will redraw a selection of these emojis for Wikis to pick from in the community configurations. The deadline for adding emojis is end of day30 November 2025. Add your suggestionshere.
Thank you for your continued curiosity and playful energy! We look forward to continuing this experiment with you all.
In our last update we shared a narrowed down scope of ideas:
In this update we are sharing wireframe sketches of the portal page and the toggle switch where users will turn on “birthday mode”, as well as updated sketches of the birthday mascot. Join us at anoffice hour or leave a comment on thetalk page with your thoughts.
These wireframes show the placement of UI elements, but do not show final artwork.
The plan is to tease the campaign feature for a week or two before it becomes available on the Wikipedias that have chosen to turn the gadget on. During this time, the Portal Page will show the birthday mascot is hidden inside the Puzzle Globe logo. People visiting the page will see the birthday mascot peek out of the opening of the globe. This could be a static image or a GIF where the birthday mascot waves, blinks or does other small actions.
At the top, there is a countdown to Wikipedia’s birthday. We will use the time of thefirst edit as the “time of birth”: 18:29 UTC on January 15, 2001. Below the search bar there is a button that will take people to a landing page on the Foundation’s website to explain more about the mode and birthday mascot.
Once the campaign feature goes live, the mascot will take over the space where the Puzzle Globe usually is. These wireframes show our new work-in-progress sketches of the mascot, you can see more of thembelow. While the campaign feature is live, the birthday mascot will celebrate on the portal page. A visitor can also dismiss it on the portal page. Above this section, the timer will now count “up” to playfully show how old Wikipedia is. The button below still leads to the landing page which will now include more information for readers on which Wikipedias have the gadget enabled and how to switch to "birthday mode”. On Vector 2022, a “birthday mode” switch will be added under “theme”:
Minerva and the mobile experience present a variety of different challenges with visibility and placement for a switch. As the appearance settings are inside of the menu panel, we are exploring ways to inject a ‘button’ on the article view to entice readers to turn it on. Additionally it could be helpful to encourage birthday mode to be on by default on Minerva when possible. Regardless of which approach is taken for the Article or Page view on Minerva, the switch toggle should be available in Settings. For versions that require a dialog, Codex provides a standard component for dialogs on mobile.
The star of the short-term campaign feature is a charismatic mascot (first developed by our community). The mascot will be used in the visual surprises that are unlocked by easter eggs; as a teaser element in the portal page intervention; and as a part of the ‘birthday mode’ extension.
For now, we have focused on developing the character of the birthday mascot, next we will be focusing on how readers interact with the mascot and where they show up. The birthday embodies some of the best qualities of Wikipedia: curious, open, worldly, and always ready to explore with readers! The mascot is also playful—quick to pick up a noisemaker to celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday, show off their dance moves, or pull a giant puzzle piece out of their head space. Think of them as a friend to all editors and readers.
These are still rough sketches. The final mascot animation will be more polished and feel a bit slicker, while still feeling hand-drawn and not computer-generated. Below are some sketches of the mascot doing typical birthday things to give you a sense of more celebratory moments.
Most of the items that the birthday mascot uses will come from the space inside the globe, which we are treating like "hammerspace". This allows for lots of fun with different items and for us to use existing resources like emojis to build out the amount of items the mascot has access to.
We will be hosting office hours to answer questions, discuss feedback and ideas.
Please join us in one of these sessions:
During Wikimania, we shared a broad selection of mix-and-match elements that can be combined together. Based on feedback we received there, and consultations with Wikimedia Foundation engineers and technical experts, as well as colleagues in Movement Communications, we have narrowed down the list of elements and resolved how they will be combined.
In essence: This project will take shape as an intervention on the portal page (visible to all) and a ‘birthday mode’ that will unlock delightful visuals as well as unlockable Easter eggs.
Mascot
We will leverage a charismatic mascot (first developed by our community and known affectionately with the working title of ‘Baby Globe’) to unite our efforts in this project. The mascot will be used in the visual surprises that are unlocked by Easter eggs; as a teaser element in the portal page intervention; and as a part of the ‘birthday mode’ extension.
Portal page
The portal page will be the first hint that something celebratory is afoot on Wikipedia. We will utilize a large visual element (potentially interactive) to celebrate Wikipedia’s birthday, introduce our mascot and to entice visitors to turn on ‘birthday mode’ to celebrate and explore Wikipedia in search of Easter eggs.
Birthday mode
This mode or toggle (most likely taking the form of a gadget, please seeNotes on community configuration and involvement below for more information) will create a festive atmosphere within the chrome of Vector 2022 and Minerva. When ‘birthday mode’ is turned on, celebratory elements will be added to Vector 2022 and Minerva and it will be possible for Easter eggs to be unlocked. The mode can be configured on or off based on community preferences. One goal of utilizing ‘birthday mode’ is to enable editors and readers who are not interested in celebrating to continue their normal Wikipedia activities, undisturbed through the celebration.
Easter eggs
Easter eggs will be discoverable / unlockable when birthday mode is enabled. Easter eggs will feature animations and other fun surprises featuring our mascot. They may be unlocked via gestures or appear on specific article topics or pages. More updates and examples of what exactly will happen here to follow soon. If you have suggestions for fun surprises, please add them to theTalk page.
Notes on community configuration and involvement
We want to work with volunteers on different language Wikipedias to advocate for enabling the ‘birthday mode’ gadget in their communities. We will aim to enable Wikis to turn the gadget on or off, and to configure if the mode is turned on by default or requires opting in (eg. turning on the toggle). Do you want to collaborate on this? Do you think your community would be interested in participating? Add your username on theTalk page and we'll be in touch!
Appsinvolvement during peak 3 in May 2026
Easter eggs will not be available on the mobile apps at the start of birthday celebrations (January 2026), but we will work with the apps teams to create ‘companion puzzles’ in May 2026 that can be unlocked by ‘connecting’ with another app user (eg. scanning a QR code from their app) to unlock a discount in the Wikipedia Store and / or other rewards or contests.
The aim of this approach is to break down individual ideas or compositions into mix-and-match elements that can be combined together. Ideas do not necessarily need to ship together in a final form, so hopefully seeing these designs as smaller ideas that allow us to be flexible in how we implement them.
This space is visited often (over a million times a day) and sits outside of content, how might we leverage it to celebrate the birthday and bring awareness to the easter eggs project? The portal page is a space off-Wiki where celebration can occur and where we can set the stage for further easter eggs to be discovered.
[1]https://wikimediafoundation.org/wikipedia-year-in-review-2024/
Utilizing appearance settings as a way to facilitate new layers of interaction with and understanding of Wikipedia. An appearance setting can help to ensure that the experience is ‘opt in’ and doesn’t disrupt the normal flows of reading and editing…while still rewarding curious visitors.
Easter eggs are often unlocked by performing certain actions or entering in special codes. How might we leverage common gestures on the web to reveal surprises? Gestures like scrolling fast, highlighting certain words, or clicking lots of links quickly.
Content on Wikipedia is front and center on both desktop and mobile, but the footer and header of the article view do leave space for interventions and surprise. What surprise could we hide for curious readers to discover at the bottom of pages?
How might we encourage people to explore and share with their friends through the use of puzzles that need multiple people to work together to solve or complete? Can we bring people together to unlock rewards?
A charismatic mascot could be an element that is used to unite a broader easter egg campaign, appearing as a surprise. Something like this could be easy to animate and understandable without language.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant
[2]https://www.figma.com/blog/finding-a-forever-home-for-figpals/
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mascot
To aid in assessing elements and to inspire different ways of approaching combinations, we’ve included a series of ‘compositions’ that pull together different ideas. These compositions are just for illustration purposes and do not have to be considered as a discrete solution: they represent a small number of ways ideas can be composed together. Can you think of other fun ways to combine the ideas?
You visit Wikipedia.org and notice that something is different, the globe responds to your touch and opens up a whole world for you to explore.
You go on with your search, curious what else you might find. You discover a new appearance setting and when it’s turned on you get to see inside Wikipedia in a way you never knew was possible.
Wikipedia is a living breathing thing: on some articles a warm chime occurs every time the article you are reading has been edited.
You come across an article and here discover that not only did many people work together on this article too – they have looooong discussions about it. Like debating about whether hot dogs are sandwiches? (Good question!)
You spot a funny message about cookies and how you don't have to accept them to use the site. This is exactly the kind of thing you wish more websites did! You screenshot the message and send it to your friends.
As you browse you discover that there are other language Wikipedias! You learn that this article is also available in 241 other languages! You realise how connected you are to all these people through learning together.
You keep the special setting on. It reveals many cool things you never knew about Wikipedia. You grow to trust and love this common resource. Now you know how to tell good articles from the not-so-good-YET articles. You understand that there are high quality sources, and how community members decide about all of it together.
You visit Wikipedia.org and notice that something is different, the globe responds to your touch and opens up a whole world for you to explore.
You go on with your search, curious what else you might find. You discover a new appearance setting and when it’s turned on you get to see inside Wikipedia in a way you never knew was possible.
Wikipedia is a living breathing thing: on some articles a warm chime occurs every time the article you are reading has been edited.
You come across an article and here discover that not only did many people work together on this article too – they have looooong discussions about it. Like debating about whether hot dogs are sandwiches? (Good question!)
You spot a funny message about cookies and how you don't have to accept them to use the site. This is exactly the kind of thing you wish more websites did! You screenshot the message and send it to your friends.
As you browse you discover that there are other language Wikipedias! You learn that this article is also available in 241 other languages! You realise how connected you are to all these people through learning together.
You keep the special setting on. It reveals many cool things you never knew about Wikipedia. You grow to trust and love this common resource. Now you know how to tell good articles from the not-so-good-YET articles. You understand that there are high quality sources, and how community members decide about all of it together.
You had a bar bet with a friend that the actor on your favorite show was 25 not 19. Landing on the Wikipedia page for their article in the app you confirm this, but then you get drawn in to their personal life, you learn a bit about their childhood, browse their filmography and find yourself at the bottom of the article. And that’s when you spot it. Is that a puzzle piece? What is this doing here?
You ask your friend to take a look, it’s not appearing on the website, so hey download the app. Twist! On their app there’s a different puzzle piece! You put your phones near one another to compare and the familiar buzz from triggering an NFC occurs. You both accept and unlock a surprise message and a discount to the Wikipedia store.
This is too cool! There must be others hidden around! In your browsing you discover that there are different puzzle pieces to connect and different messages to uncover. Some tell you cool things about Wikipedia and its history, others reveal mini games or fun animations.
Thank you for taking the time to read about this project. Please leave ideas and comments on theTalk: page.
